TRANSMISSION ART ARCHIVE
Celeste Oram
Celeste Oram Portrait.
Celeste Oram is a composer with equal investments in radiophonic and transmission art, as well as live musical performance in the experimental and classical realms. Oram’s work explores the histories and micro-cultures of musical practice itself, as well as its socio-political entanglements. Her radiophonic pieces employ radio technologies (sometimes DIY) as a musical instrument in the pursuit of richly contrapuntal sonic textures. Often Oram’s work engages with the histories and cultures of both public and amateur radio, and their entwined development with colonialism and nation-building—especially in her home country Aotearoa New Zealand. Recent compositions for live performance span instrumental and vocal concert music, polyphonic songs, music for period Baroque instruments, experimental music-theatre, and orchestral music for dance-theater. Much of Oram’s musical language is rooted in a studied investment in early music, revivifying historical musical languages via experimental approaches.